Trump advisor castigates Clinton betrayal of Israel

Donald Trump's trusted co-advisor on Israel, David Friedman, has castigated Hillary Clinton for her role as Secretary of State in perpetrating one of President Obama's worst foreign policy failures, trashing the letter from President Bush to Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004, its terms having been overwhelmingly endorsed by Congress 502 votes to 12.

Friedman, rumoured to be Trump's Ambassador to Israel if Trump becomes America's next President, was recently asked this question in a wide ranging interview:

Hillary Clinton has just about everyone suggesting she is the most qualified person ever to be president. Where did she go wrong with the Middle East - if she did?

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Friedman replied:

I don't think she has made a right decision. I think she said some helpful things when she was the senator from New York when she had a Jewish constituency. As soon as she became secretary of state, the first thing she did was to embrace a unilateral settlement freeze. I think it completely poisoned the environment. I'm not aware of anything she did that is particularly good. I can name off the top of my head things that were nasty, like ripping up the letter from George Bush to Ariel Sharon, which I think was the only thing Israel got from evacuating Gaza.

The Bush letter had acknowledged the risks Israel was taking in unilaterally disengaging from Gaza and part of the West Bank. In return Bush gave Israel written assurances that in final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority America would support Israel:

not returning to the 1949 armistice lines

demanding recognition as the Jewish state

refusing Palestinian Arab "refugees" being resettled in Israel

In ripping up these assurances Obama had undermined Israel's security concerns and negotiating positions as agreed with Obama's immediate predecessor.

Israel's unilateral disengagement was duly completed in 2005 - with 8000 Israeli civilians leaving their homes and businesses established during the previous 35 years - whilst Israel's military also completely withdrew.

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By any analysis that disengagement has been disastrous, bringing Israel and Gaza no peace, only ongoing and continuing conflict resulting from:

thousands of rockets and projectiles being fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza;

terrorist incursions into Israel; and

the construction of tunnels from Gaza into Israel's sovereign territory to serve as entry points for future terrorist assaults on Israel by Gaza's myriad array of terrorist groups.

To be fair to Clinton her role in framing Obama's policy repudiating the Bush Congress-endorsed assurances remains unclarified and unexplained.

About the Author

David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International - an organisation calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at www.jordanispalestine.blogspot.com.